Currenlly Jijiga town exhibits faster growth rate (5% per annum) as compared with otherrnurban centers of Ethiopia. As a result, the town has been growing horizontally in anrnunplanned situation. This condition seems to contribute its share for the rapid proliferation ofrnsquatter settlements at the periphery of the town.rnThis study focuses on the squatter settlements in Jijiga town, Somali region, The mainrnobjective of the study is to assess the demographic and socioeconomic determinant factorsrnthat contribute in favor of squatter settlement. Besides this, the study tried to address thernforms of land acquisition, housing condition and availability of social services and amenities.rnHence, to achieve the study objective open and closed ended questionnaires for 90 squatterrnhousehold heads were carried out in the sampled kebele OJ and kebele 06.rnThe major finding of this study is that squatting in study area is of recent phenomena thatrncame into existence since J983E. C. Major demographic and socio economic factors identifiedrnby researcher in aggravating squatting activity are family size, marital status, headshiprnstatus, education, occupation, income, poverty, administrative bottlenecks, rising house rents,rnover crowding, etc. Furthermore, direct occupation, the practice of illegal land purchase andrnother administrative factors contributed to the emergence and growth of squatter settlementsrnin the study area. Moreover, majority of the squatter settlers were internal migrants comingrnin search of employment opportunities. Besides this, squatters in study area were both povertyrnand non poverty driven, occupied large plots of area, have poor quality housing condition,rnpoor social and infrastructural services. Thus, due to poor land management together withrnrapid growth of urban population and high urban land demand for house construction,rnproblems of squatting is getting serious in study area.